Gobble It Up: Southern-style Pumpkin Pecan Cheesecake

For as long as I can remember I've had this undying need to create some sort of showstopper dessert for each holiday. There is nothing, I repeat no-thing, that gets me more fired up than seeing some ridiculous themed dessert on the cover of a magazine that requires far more skill than I actually have, and deciding that will be my holiday, baking "Everest" for the season.

Like I said, this goes back as long as I can remember, starting with the Fourth of July, triple tier, Jell-O jigglers, cake. I must've been somewhere between ten and 12 years old when I spotted this beauty on the cover of some ladies mag. I made the thing two or three times before I was finally able to get the tiers to stand majestic like our Lady of Liberty (as opposed to the previous Leaning Tower of Pisa versions) and to get the scratch made icing thick enough to keep those Jell-O stars from sliding down the sides. FYI - I just googled hard for about twenty minutes trying to an image of the cake from whatever magazine it was on and/or some replica that was close, but no dice. Don't worry, I'll keep looking.

A Balancing Act

When I was a kid I took gymnastics class. It was the type of class where you got exposure to all the different apparatuses (FYI - I googled, that is the correct plural) and skills. Now, I have very little memory of childhood, but you bet your leotards I remember the time I tried my first backwalkover on the balance beam. My hands missed, leaving me to flail backwards, feet over head, smacking my crown on the beam before falling off altogether. And like most cracks to the melon, there was a valuable lesson to be learned.

Unfortunately, the big ta-da! wouldn't come until nearly tweny years later when I realize I am horrible at balance. I took a hiatus from this blog and filled in my time with a million other things. I got distracted. I got "busy." I got overwhelmed with life. Whatever, whatever, I dropped the ball on doing something I enjoy that gives me a creative outlet and I'm ready to be done operating in that zone. I realize one of my big challenges in this life is achieving that exquisite lesson of balance, and the virtue of some valuable "me time."